Higley Highland Warner Lakeview Trails Estates Groves

I’ll bet you wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear that this is the name of a new community in Morrison Ranch. Who names these things, anyway? Actually, the folks in our office have to take responsibility for that.

The Mister jokes that we should all be flogged for the confusion that ensues from the naming of projects. But it really isn’t as easy as it seems. We want the names to communicate several things about the community. First, they should give a hint of location; Higley in the name means it can be accessed by Higley Road, and the same for Warner; Highland is near Highland High School; and Lakeview means it has a view of the lake. Of course the Lake issue gets a little muddy because Highland Groves will have a double lake, not as big as the one next to Lakeview Village, but still impressive.

The other adjectives are there to remind us of our agricultural heritage and our attempts to mirror those traditions somewhat in our communities. Groves is self-explanatory, and some of our fields used to have orange groves on them. We are planting enough trees to give a grove-like feel throughout Morrison Ranch – not to mention shade – and we try to use straight streets like groves and cotton fields use straight rows. Estates reminds me of a fancy way of referring to the farmer’s homestead, which is usually situated in the middle of a field. The Estates are the larger lots, so that makes sense. And Trails is a primary concept for us at Morrison Ranch, because we are connecting the entire Master Planned Community by trails throughout; some are even constructed for equestrian use.

The addition of a polar direction (East, West, North, and South) has been necessitated by phasing timing. Higley Groves east of Higley is truly just Higley Groves; the West moniker got added to the second half because it was constructed a couple years after the first. The same will hold true for Lakeview Trails North and Lakeview Trails South.

I tried for a long time to call projects by their field numbers (Highland Groves is field 29, if you’re interested), but the homebuilders and contractors weren’t too interested in using field numbers, so I was pretty quickly voted down on that score. In actuality the engineers and accountants in the office now excuse themselves from the naming process and leave it up to the artists in residence.

That’s a peek into our convoluted naming process; even we find ourselves confused at times. If you want to look at all the names on a map, check out the web site here.